


Before: One

by raving_liberal



Series: Before, After, During [1]
Category: Glee
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-16
Updated: 2014-01-16
Packaged: 2018-01-09 00:01:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1139056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raving_liberal/pseuds/raving_liberal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>February 2013</p>
            </blockquote>





	Before: One

Finn wakes up to the sound of someone pounding on his dorm room door. The room is dark, and a quick glance at his alarm clock confirms it’s still the middle of the night, just a little past three. After his grumbled “Puck?” doesn’t get answered, Finn rolls out of his bunk, pulls jeans on over his boxers, and walks groggily to the door. He opens it, blinking down at Jay, one of the Delta Kappa Chi brothers.

“‘Sup?” Finn asks. Jay scratches at the side of his face while his eyes bounce around, never really landing on Finn’s.

“So you know how we were all cool about the whole thing with you and Puck, yeah?” Jay asks. His right eye twitches almost, but not quite, rhythmically. The skin under his eyes is greenish and thin.

Finn scratches the back of his head, because Jay’s twitchy eye makes him itch. “Yeah, me and Puck aren’t actually—”

“So, yeah. So I need a favor, it’s just a little favor,” Jay says. “I just need you to take something somewhere.”

“Can it wait until it’s daytime?” Finn asks. “‘Cause it’s like 3am or something like that.”

“ _No!_ ” Jay says. 

“Uh, for real, it’s 3am, dude,” Finn says. 

“I really need you to do this for me,” Jay says. His eye twitches faster, and he looks like he might cry or hyperventilate or something. “I _really_ need this favor, like right now.”

At this point, Finn’s prepared to agree to almost anything to get away from the twitching and back into his bunk, but Jay’s desperation actually does give Finn a little niggling feeling of guilt, enough of one that he sighs and says, “Okay. I’ll do it.”

Jay’s non-twitchy eye wells with tears, and the twitchy one gives a few more spasms, as Jay says, “Thank you. _Thank you_. You’re saving my life here,” then shoves a lunch-sized paper bag into Finn’s hand. The bag is heavy, crumpled closed at the top.

“Uh, Jay?” Finn asks, looking at the bag. 

“It’s nothing bad. It’s just cash,” Jay says, the twitchy eye starting to calm a little. “It’s just the money I owe some people, but I can’t get it to them, not in time, and I just—I just need somebody to take it, like _STAT_ , you know? Here.” 

Jay hands Finn a torn strip of paper with an address scribbled on it in smudged pencil. Finn squints at it and decides he can probably make out the lettering well enough to get the damn bag of money there and then make it back to his own bed with enough time left to sleep a few more hours before his first class. He holds the bag and the paper while Jay continues to stare at him in increasingly-awkward silence.

“I guess I’ll go do that right now,” Finn says.

“Thanks. For real, thanks,” Jay says, nodding his head rapidly and shifting his weight from foot to foot. “Just don’t, uh. Don’t tell them you saw me. Or tell them you don’t know where you saw me. No, just don’t tell them anything. Just give them the bag, and it’ll all be cool.”

“Yeah, okay,” Finn says. Jay doesn’t move away from Finn’s doorway, so Finn continues, “So, I’m just gonna go do that now.” Jay stays in place, still nodding. “So, you can go.” 

“Oh. Yeah, cool, thanks, for real,” Jay says, continuing the weird nod as he steps out of Finn’s way. 

“So, you can go,” Finn repeats. “Dude, I’ve gotta put on some clothes and stuff.”

“Okay, yeah, sorry. I’ll just, uh, I’ll see you around,” Jay says, finally turning and walking away down the dorm corridor, turning to look nervously over his shoulder at Finn. 

Finn shakes his head as Jay leaves through the double doors at the end of the hall. “Weirdo,” he mutters to himself, adding a t-shirt and a U of Lima hoodie to his jeans, and pulling on his boots, gloves, and coat. He looks for his hat and then grumbles to himself when he realizes Puck’s taken it yet again, so he pulls his hood up over his head before mentally steeling himself to walk out into the wet and frigid February night. Finn glances down at the address again. He can get there and back quickly, probably without even losing his parking space outside the dorm. Nobody’ll even realize he’s gone.


End file.
